Remove Bluetooth Icon ... Just kidding!

I'm not sure if this is a Vista-only problem, but I've seen this on a few systems now and it's starting to irk me. On my Vista-enabled notebooks and Tablet PCs, if you enable Bluetooth you'll see a little blue Bluetooth icon appear in the system tray. If you want to remove it, just right-click it and choose "Remove Bluetooth Icon." Done. Right?

Wrong. Every time you reboot, the icon comes back. If you try to remove the Bluetooth application from starting in Windows Defender, it still comes back. What the heck is up with this thing?

I haven't tested this a lot, but the only way I've found to actually remove this is to turn off Bluetooth. Or, if you do want Bluetooth running and don't want to see the icon, configure it as "Hide" in Taskbar and Start Menu Properties: Customize Notification Icons.

Surely, I'm missing something. But why is this so insidious? And on a more general note, why design software that doesn't honor your choice when it makes such an explicit option available? (I'm reminded of the Windows registration request, which includes the choice, "Don't register Windows at this time." As I've pointed out to Microsoft, the "at this time" bit suggests you will have another chance to register, but you actually don't. So why include that language?)